A Rose By Any Other Name...
When you're in business for yourself, you meet hordes of people day in and day out. Very often many of those people will help you build your business or may connect you to people who will help you in one way or another. Therefore it is imperative you are able to remember their names. Name recall is tricky. Some people remember faces (me) and some remember names (not me). Email makes this situation ever so much worse. You can email someone for months, build a relationship with them - even talk on the phone - but then you run into them in person and....... Uhhhh..... Nothing..... Who the heck is this? I am personally mortified at least a few times per year after running into clients and having absolutely no idea who they are. We sign up so many people we've never even met yet and for them, I can forgive myself. But someone I met in person? Someone who has been with us for years? Egad! Unforgiveable. If you're good at remembering names, BRAVO! Good Job! Keep it up! But if you're like me and really struggle at it, try to find a way to associate someone's name and face so you can remember it. The primary reason it is so important to remember names is because people want to be acknowledged. By our very nature, human beings want to be heard, seen and acknowledged. And don't forget; the same holds true for uniquely spelled names because a misspelled name is also a grievous error. And on that note: We'd like to publicly apologize to Rachel Revill with PerfecTiming Concierge. Last month we printed a lovely and glowing testimonial from her, only to add an extra T into her company name. See? Awful. Embarrassing! Our apologies Rachel!! This name recall issue is important all the time, but it is especially important when you own your own business. Make sure you and anyone who works for you does their very best to remember faces/names and to spell names correctly if you want to be seen as a competent and professional company. And if you do make a mistake, by all means, ADMIT IT! Shakespeare wrote "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Um, no. That's not 100% accurate. When it comes to people, names help build relationships. Take the time to pay attention, write it down, create a mnemonic or do a word association. Whatever it takes, but remember those names.......
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